There were at least two insurrectionist plans that day.
As I’ve written previously, one of the plans was simply to either take Pence hostage or to assassinate him. 1/28
The point is that on January 20 Trump would still be sitting in the White House, with no Congressional certification of the election having been completed. 18/28
Checkmate.
That seems to have been the thinking of most of the insurrectionists. 19/28
It is a pernicious lie that they want to defend the Constitution. 22/28
The insurrectionist right only wants to defend what they call the “original Constitution”--which is *their* Constitution, not ours, and to do it by any means necessary. 23/28
The best way to do that was to win re-election legally.
Failing that, he was determined to stay in power through a coup. 24/28
More from Thomas Wood 🌊
It was a foregone conclusion that Trump would lose the TX case, but why did he say “This is the big one?” 1/9
Because the TX case rested on the proposition that a national election can be nullified and “overturned” (a term Trump actually used in a tweet) on the grounds that it does not satisfy conditions determined by the incumbent president 2/9
and the states governed by that president’s political party--
(e..g., no votes by voters receiving mail-in ballots who do not request those ballots shall be deemed legitimate.) 3/9
This litigation was intended to nullify all the votes in all 50 states, and would have called for a new election. It challenged election procedures, not just election results. And it did not require any proof of fraud or undercounts or overcounts. 4/9
In other words, no national election can be legitimate that fails to reelect the incumbent president--in this case of course, Donald J. Trump, the Supreme Leader of the *real* America. 5/9
We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2020
Because the TX case rested on the proposition that a national election can be nullified and “overturned” (a term Trump actually used in a tweet) on the grounds that it does not satisfy conditions determined by the incumbent president 2/9
and the states governed by that president’s political party--
(e..g., no votes by voters receiving mail-in ballots who do not request those ballots shall be deemed legitimate.) 3/9
This litigation was intended to nullify all the votes in all 50 states, and would have called for a new election. It challenged election procedures, not just election results. And it did not require any proof of fraud or undercounts or overcounts. 4/9
In other words, no national election can be legitimate that fails to reelect the incumbent president--in this case of course, Donald J. Trump, the Supreme Leader of the *real* America. 5/9
More from Government
This is a good piece on fissures within the GOP but I think it mischaracterizes the Trump presidency as “populist” & repeats a story about how conservatives & the GOP expelled the far-right in the mid-1960s that is actually far more complicated. /1
I don’t think the sharp opposition between “hard-edge populism” & “conservative orthodoxy” holds. Many of the Trump administration’s achievements were boilerplate conservatism. Its own website trumpets things like “massive deregulation,” tax cuts, etc. /2
https://t.co/N97v85Bb79
The claim that Buckley and “key GOP politicians banded together to marginalize anti-Communist extremism and conspiracy-mongering” of the JBS has been widely repeated lately but the history is more complicated. /3
This tweet by @ThePlumLineGS citing a paper by @sam_rosenfeld and @daschloz on the "porous" boundary between conservatives, the GOP and the far-right is relevant in this context.
This is a separate point but I find it interesting that Gaetz, like Roy Moore did In his failed Senate campaign, disses McConnell. What are their actual policy differences? MM supported taking health care away from millions, a tax cut for the rich, conservative judges, etc. /5
I don’t think the sharp opposition between “hard-edge populism” & “conservative orthodoxy” holds. Many of the Trump administration’s achievements were boilerplate conservatism. Its own website trumpets things like “massive deregulation,” tax cuts, etc. /2
https://t.co/N97v85Bb79
The claim that Buckley and “key GOP politicians banded together to marginalize anti-Communist extremism and conspiracy-mongering” of the JBS has been widely repeated lately but the history is more complicated. /3
This tweet by @ThePlumLineGS citing a paper by @sam_rosenfeld and @daschloz on the "porous" boundary between conservatives, the GOP and the far-right is relevant in this context.
There's a great paper called "The Long New Right" that tells the story of the GOP/conservative movement's failure to police extremists for the last 50 years.
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) January 28, 2021
It's highly relevant to the insurrection and Marjorie Greene's lunacy.
I summed it up here:https://t.co/DTlzGomy5h pic.twitter.com/Dhc38CDuE2
This is a separate point but I find it interesting that Gaetz, like Roy Moore did In his failed Senate campaign, disses McConnell. What are their actual policy differences? MM supported taking health care away from millions, a tax cut for the rich, conservative judges, etc. /5